Princess Cruises Community Foundation sponsored its seventh annual holiday giving program benefitting Single Mothers Outreach, a local nonprofit organization that empowers single parents and their children by providing hope, support and resources so that families can become self-sustaining.

Princess Cruises’ employees based at the cruise line’s world headquarters in Santa Clarita form teams to shop for clothes, toys and other items on family wish lists using gift cards purchased by PCCF.

This year gifts are going to approximately 100 families in the Santa Clarita Valley, and are wrapped and decorated by the employee teams to add extra cheer. Many employees supplement the gift card purchases to make the holiday season even more special for local families.

“Over the past seven years, PCCF has donated $100,000 in holiday gifts and thousands of volunteer hours to increase the positive impact year over year,” said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises president. “Participation in this program has been a wonderful way for our employees to make a tremendous difference in our community while helping those in need during the holidays.”

For this team-building campaign, Princess Cruises stages and supplies a festive holiday gift-wrapping center on their campus where teams bring their purchased gifts to wrap and tag. Local moving company Camelot Moving and Storage donates trucks and employee time to load up the gifts to deliver to Single Mothers Outreach.

“Each year we have single mothers, and even fathers, who never expected to need assistance giving their kids holiday gifts on their wish list,” said Yorleni Sapp, Single Mothers Outreach executive director. “With the generosity of the Princess Cruises Community Foundation and Princess employees, our families have a more joyful and memorable holiday season.”

Since the annual program started more than 2,400 Princess employees have formed 511 teams purchasing gifts for 700 families bringing holiday cheer to more than 2,100 family members, throughout the Santa Clarita Valley.

More information about Single Mothers Outreach can be found at www.singlemothersoutreach.org.

Princess Cruises Community Foundation is also collecting donations to aid victims of Hurricanes Irma and Maria and support relief efforts in the Caribbean. To donate, [click here.]

The Princess Cruises Community Foundation, a nonprofit public benefit corporation, was established in 2008 to provide financial and in-kind support to non-profit organizations. The Foundation’s mission is touch the lives of the people in the places Princess Cruises travels, the places employees are from and the places they live through education, preservation of natural and historical global landmarks, responding to disaster relief and supporting global communities’ local health and welfare efforts.